Crusaders

‘Typically breezy and well-paced … Jones sets out to entertain as well as inform, covering a great deal of ground’ Financial Times. ‘Bloody battles and epic sieges abound in this energetic history of the Crusades, a series of adventures that still has ramifications today’ Mail on Sunday. ‘[Jones] offers a ‘tableau history’ - a series of stories with wonderfully bizarre characters on both sides. It’s impossible to be cynical about Jones the historian; he’s enormously prolific, yet each book is impressively researched and beautifully written. He’s a passionate writer, a rumbustious knight who loves his own literary crusade’ The Times. ‘A distinct new perspective … A fantastic, scholarly book … Masterfully told and makes for a gripping read. A must for anyone with an interest in the period’ Pennant. ‘His tale is steeped in scholarly research and lively writing. Were it not for the violence inherent to his subject matter, you might call it divine’ Christian Science Monitor. ‘Dan Jones writes every history book as through it were a Netflix drama’ Yorkshire Post. ‘Crusaders excels not only in narrating this complex history in such a readable and immersive manner, but also in setting events in their wider contexts … Narratives of medieval knights in combat and conquest can run the risk of romanticising their actions through efforts to spark further interest from the reader, but Jones’s treatement of the source material is measured under the engaging prose. Jones has drawn together a compelling work that is weighty in pages but always highly readable’ All About History. ‘The master of the Middle Ages turns his attention to the compelling saga of religious conflict’ Radio Times. ‘Dan Jones has the priceless ability to write page-turning narrative history underpinned by authoritative scholarship. Never before has the era of the Crusades been depicted in such bright and striking colours, or their story told with such gusto’ Edinburgh Reporter. ‘Compelling … Jones is adept at teasing out the array of motivations that propelled the crusaders on an arduous, often harrowing, journey to an uncertain, violent destination … An avowedly pluralist account in which equal weight is given to the experiences of Christians and Muslims … Jones has written an epic of his own here, as complex as it is compelling’ Prospect. ‘A fresh and vibrant account of a conflict that raged across medieval centuries’ Jonathan Phillips. ‘A powerful story brilliantly told. Dan Jones writes with pace, wit and insight’ Helen Castor. ‘This is rollercoaster history … Dan Jones has a nose for the dramatic, disgusting and bizarre … Every page of his extraordinary book provides vivid evidence of the Crusades’ continuing ability to mesmerise’ The Times. ‘Voyages, battles, sieges and slaughter: Dan Jones’s tumultuous and thrilling history of the crusades is one of the best … Jones is exceptionally good at giving evocative snapshots of medieval life, sometimes poignant, sometimes pure Monty Python’ Sunday Times.

Dan Jones is a broadcaster, award-winning journalist and pioneer of the resurgence of interest in medieval history. He is the bestselling author of Summer of Blood, The Plantagenets, Magna Carta, Realm Divided and The Templars. He lives in London.